Sony has launched a new division called Crunchyroll Storyworks. > The new division will work with Japanese creators and rights holders to develop new projects based on Japanese IP. > This includes anime adaptations of international stories and live-action adaptations of Japanese anime and other properties. > Crunchyroll Storyworks will be led by Tohru Iokibe and will also work closely with HAYATE, the anime production company created by Crunchyroll and Aniplex. Sony is looking to bring more Japanese stories to audiences around the world, let’s see how much they censor

My neighbor, Mr. Shimada, has worked customs at Narita Airport for thirty-one years. He says he can always tell when a kid is coming home from a year with an American host family. It's the suitcase. They never bring home souvenirs. They bring home a family. He let me write down a few. A suitcase that would not close. Inside: eleven boxes of macaroni and cheese. Her host mom had heard her say once, in September, that she liked it. (Kaho, 16, Wisconsin) A gallon Ziploc bag of red dirt. On it, in marker: "OKLAHOMA. In case you miss it." Soil is not allowed into Japan. Mr. Shimada had to take it. She cried. He says he has thought about that dirt for nine years. (Hinata, 17, Oklahoma) One jar of Grandma's homemade pickles. Wrapped in a football jersey. Wrapped in a Texas flag. Wrapped in a second football jersey. Mr. Shimada says it was the most heavily protected object he has ever inspected, including diplomatic mail. (Kota, 16, Texas) A Christmas ornament with her name hand-painted on it. A note taped to the box: "For our tree. We're leaving your hook empty till you come back." (Rena, 17, Kansas) Four pounds of gas station beef jerky, "for the plane." The flight is thirteen hours. He had not eaten a single piece. He said his host dad bought it for him, so he couldn't. (Tomoki, 16, Montana) A church directory. On page 12, her photo. Under it, not "Exchange Student." Just the family's last name. Like it was hers. (Airi, 17, Michigan) A phone charger with a strip of tape on it: "MOM'S. DON'T LOSE IT." At the airport, her host mom had pulled her own charger out of the wall and pushed it into her hand. (Yua, 16, Georgia) A camo hat. He has never hunted. He will never hunt. He would not take it off during the inspection. (Sosuke, 17, Arkansas) And on the customs form, under "Items to declare," a girl had written one word in English and then crossed it out because she thought it was against the rules. "Family." (Saki, 16, Iowa) And then there are the kids who come through with almost nothing. Last summer, a boy came to Mr. Shimada's counter with one small bag. Clothes. A toothbrush. That was it. Hayate. Seventeen. Alabama. He was crying. Not a little. The kind of crying a seventeen-year-old boy tries very hard to hide and can't. Mr. Shimada asked if he was all right. The boy said his host dad couldn't come to the airport. He worked double shifts at the plant. They had said goodbye at five that morning, in the kitchen, fast, the way men do. The boy said he hadn't said it right. He hadn't said thank you the way he meant to. Then his phone buzzed on the inspection table. A photo. A big man in work coveralls, standing at the chain-link fence at the far end of the runway at the Atlanta airport. Holding up a piece of cardboard from a pizza box. In black marker: "THAT'S MY KID UP THERE." He had left the plant on his break, driven to the airport, found the end of the runway, and stood at the fence in the heat until a plane with that boy on it went over his head. Then he drove back and finished his shift. Mr. Shimada says he is not supposed to look at people's phones. He asked if he could see it again. He has opened thousands of bags in thirty-one years. From every country in the world. He says only the kids from America come home carrying a whole family. And never once has the important thing been something anybody bought. So, America. You think you're just packing a snack for the plane. You're a bag of red dirt we had to take away. You're an empty hook on a tree in Kansas. You're a man in work clothes at a fence in Georgia, holding a pizza box at the sky. You never declared any of it. It got through anyway. (Wisconsin: the macaroni got through. We are not monsters.)

My coworker Hayato is 38. He has a wife, two kids, and a mortgage. He also has a paper napkin in his wallet. It's 22 years old. He says the most important person in his life was a lunch lady in Michigan. In 2004, Hayato was sixteen, an exchange student in a small town there. His English was bad. He had no friends. Every day at lunch, he sat at the end of a long table, alone, and watched everyone else laugh. He told me he felt invisible. Like the whole world was a party he wasn't invited to. He counted the days until he could go home. There were 211. The lunch lady was Bev. Hairnet. Reading glasses on a chain. She'd been working that line for twelve years. On his first day, she asked his name. He said "Hayato." She said, "Hi-YAH-toe! Welcome, honey." It was wrong. He never corrected her. Nobody else had asked. After that, there was always an extra cookie on his tray. Every day. Every day she said the same thing when he got to the front of the line. "There's my guy." Then, one day in October, there was writing on his napkin. Blue pen. "You're doing better than you think." He thought it was an accident. The next day, there was another one. "Nobody has it figured out. They're just louder about it." And another. "Bad days don't count against you." "You belong here. I checked." Then one day in November: "Kid in the red hoodie likes anime too. Sit by him tomorrow." Hayato almost didn't do it. He was terrified. He did it anyway. The kid in the red hoodie was named Kyle. Ten years later, Kyle flew to Tokyo and stood next to Hayato at his wedding as his best man. When Hayato went home in June, he had 117 napkins in a shoebox. He still has every one. This spring, Bev retired after 34 years. Hayato flew back to Michigan for the party. He thought it would be small. Some cake in the teachers' lounge. It was in the gym. There were four hundred people. He said it took him a few minutes to notice. Grown men and women were holding napkins. A Marine in his dress uniform. A nurse. A truck driver. A woman with three kids hanging off her. All holding old, soft, yellowed paper napkins with blue pen on them. A man next to Hayato said, "The year my mom left, Bev was the only adult in this town who knew my name." Then he took out his wallet and showed Hayato his napkin. For 34 years, she had done this for thousands of kids. Nobody told anybody. Every kid thought they were the only one. When they gave Bev the microphone, she looked out at the gym for a long time. She was crying too hard to say much. "I didn't do anything," she said. "I just learned your names." Before Hayato left, she found him in the parking lot. She pulled one more napkin out of her purse, already written on, and put it in his hand. She'd known he was coming. "You're somebody's whole day. You just haven't found out yet." That's the one in his wallet. So if you've ever thought you're just something. Just a lunch lady. Just a cashier. Just a mom. Just the guy who works nights. Somewhere, someone may be carrying your napkin. You're somebody's whole day. You just haven't found out yet.

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